Page 17 of Faron
Bear huffed like,Took you long enough.
I dropped to the floor, cross-legged in the middle of the room like a worn-out soldier surrendering to gravity. My scrub top was wrinkled and stained. My hair was falling out of a bun that had eaten three pens and half my sanity. And Bear — the ever-patient saint that he was — flopped into my lap like I was still worthy of being someone’s safe place.
I buried my face in his fur and let the silence eat the noise of the day.
“It’s just you and me, huh?”
His tail thumped across my ankle.
I gave a watery laugh. It cracked in the middle like something breaking loose. “I hate him, Bear. I hate that stupid face. Those damn eyes. The way he looks at me like I’m not broken. Like I’m still that girl who believed she could save the world with a first aid kit and hope.”
Bear sneezed.You’re still her.
I leaned in and whispered, “I can’t do it again. I can’t love him and lose him. I can’t watch him walk into my mess and take a bullet that was never meant for him.”
He licked my wrist — soft, slow, like he forgave me for all the damage I’d done to myself.
“I want him,” I whispered. “God, I want him so bad it hurts. Just to shut the world out and crawl inside him for one night. Pretend none of this exists. No bullet wounds, no broken kids, no gangs. Just us.”
Bear let out a long sigh.One night is never enough, dummy.
I laughed again, face buried in fur. “Yeah. I know. That’s the problem.”
We sat there until the clock ticked into morning, until my chest didn’t feel like it was caving in.
And for just a moment, I let myself believe I was still worth loving.
Eventually, I stood up. Walked to the bedroom like someone climbing out of grief. Stripped off everything I’d carried all day — clothes, worry, guilt.
I stepped into the shower, letting hot water scald the tired from my bones.
And then he joined me.
Faron didn’t speak. He just wrapped his arms around me from behind, hands splayed on my stomach, forehead pressed to my shoulder.
And I didn’t cry.
I just leaned back and let the man who ruined me for anyone else hold me like I was still whole.
18
Faron
Iwas half-dressed and fully haunted, staring at the crack in Blue’s ceiling like it held the answer to a question I was too afraid to ask.
Bear snored beside me like a dying chainsaw.
Her scent clung to my skin. Soap, sweat, and something wild I’d never be able to name.
I should’ve gotten up. Left. Been a gentleman.
But then again, I’d never claimed to be one.
My phone buzzed against the nightstand.
Cyclone.
I sighed. The kind of sigh that only comes before war.
